This talk repeats some content presented in previous talks, but also adds some important new ideas. There is evidence here that Varki, despite a large important unrelated day job, is still thinking about and developing his theory. That’s great news because, as I’ve said many times, MORT is the most important new idea since Darwin.

This slide depicts the emergence of the unique behaviorally modern human mind.

This slide shows that most behaviors unique to humans no longer exist (grayed out) if you remove the adaptations for an extended theory of mind and reality denial.

This slide explains the implications of the Mind Over Reality Transition theory.

Varki introduces a new idea that incomplete suppression of mortality salience may explain the need for Terror Management. I wonder if Varki might be trying to get Sheldon Solomon, who has to date been juveniley dismissive of MORT, on board?

I found this slide on ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny interesting because I’m reading Michael Pollan’s new book on psychedelics in which the human brain’s Default Mode Network is explained to be the seat of self and theory of mind, and which is suppressed by psychedelic drugs thus re-creating what may be the tripping mind of a baby. I wonder if our adaptations for an extended theory of mind and reality denial somehow affected or created the Default Mode Network? I’m hoping a neuroscience expert will weigh in here.

This new idea from Varki on sex differences resulting from MORT is, I suspect, important, but I need to digest it more before commenting.

At the 23 minute mark Varki addresses climate change with a quote from his co-author Danny Brower which is a very nice summary of why I created this blog. If we do not acknowledge and manage our tendency to deny reality we are doomed as a species.

Aside 1: The video at 15:15 that Varki took on traffic from the window of his hotel room in India is hilarious.

Aside 2: The Q&A begins at 25:00 and I observe that, as with previous talks, no one in the audience seems to get the profundity of his theory.

Aside 3: I observe that the most important new idea in science, and the idea whose broad awareness may offer the only hope for our species, has 12 views on YouTube. Apparently, the only topic more unpleasant than human overshoot is our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities.

I think the reason why it’s hard for people to get it is as he keeps pointing out……we are seeing the mind as it is today and not as it was over the huge time it has been evolving. The development of ToM couldn’t have happened ‘overnight’ and neither could reality denial. It’s more a basic lack of being able to ‘see’ the course of evolution over immensities of time that trips people up. Before you can understand Varki’s theories, you’ve got to have a basic understanding of evolution by natural selection and most people don’t have it. The most interesting question of all is still Danny’s original question….why don’t we see ToM in other intelligent animals. Given enough time and the right circumstances, I think it will happen. The proper answer to Danny’s question is probably…”because there hasn’t yet been enough time.”

You might be right but I think MORT hypothesizes that the adaptations for an extended theory of mind and reality denial occured very quickly about 100,000 years ago. This is consistent with the fact that behaviorally modern humans exploded on the scene and took over the planet in a very short period. I can visualize how this speed might have happened for reality denial since all that was required was a tweak to the fear suppression module that all mammals have. Given that small genetic changes can produce a wide range of mental disorders it’s not hard to visualize that the transition from having a theory of mind to an extended theory of mind could also have occured very quickly. Varki thinks it happened in a few individuals that then bred to create the small tribe that we all descended from.

I think less people are in denial than is commonly assumed and just remaining silent to protect their social standing and jobs.

As see at Reddit r/collapse

“My teenage son says it’s called “Generation Z” because there won’t be another one.

submitted 7 hours ago by edsuom

23 comments sharesavehidereport

Nothing like a little gallows humor from a member of the generation being left with a dying planet, depleted resources, population overshoot, and out-of-control debt.”

I don’t see how it matters since the behaviour is fixed and is only ever tweaked through culture or circumstance in one direction or another. Neither way makes a difference in the big picture. Fixed is fixed.

Many agree with you that there is nothing that can be done about denial and other destructive genetic behaviors. I disagree. Some people have a genetic tendency to abuse alcohol. We understand this and prohibit them from being pilots. Why can’t we do the same with denial and leadership positions?

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Favorite Quotes

For explaining why humans are odd
To Varki and Brower we applaud
A great mystery they solved
With denial we evolved
And created the Higgs, overshoot, and God

Denial not only makes us believe in god, it is god, because denial created us, and denial may destroy us.

The human brain, the God it believes in, and the overshoot it enabled and denies, all resulted from the same improbable genetic adaptation that occurred about 100,000 years ago.

Denial is the reality that must be most aggressively denied to avoid collapsing the house of cards that keeps us functioning.

The most amazing thing about human overshoot is that we do not discuss it.

You know you are in trouble when reduced CO2 emissions from an economic collapse caused by low-cost oil depletion is not sufficient to prevent civilization collapse from climate change caused by previously emitted CO2.

Our only choices are do we want to fall from a higher elevation later, or climb down from a lower elevation sooner?

Things that can’t continue usually stop too late.

Truth is like poetry and most people hate poetry.

All 8 billion of us owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains; 6 billion of us also owe our existence to nitrogen fertilizer created from natural gas by Haber-Bosch factories.

While it digs its own grave, all the mind can do is entertain fantasies and create excuses.

When the only paying job in town is sawing off the branch which you are sitting on, you….saw away! You might refuse to saw and hang yourself from that branch, but the end is the same anyway, and that option is much less fun. (Cynic @Megacancer)

It is remarkable that a brain emerged from a cloud of hydrogen and figured out the laws of physics that governed, and possibly made inevitable, its own creation and destruction.

We have met the oblivious and they are us.

All 8 billion of us originated from one small tribe in Africa about 100,000 years ago that gave birth to a child with an improbable mutation for a more powerful brain that denied reality. The other tribes were soon toast and we took over the planet. We’re all close cousins. I love you all. Except the deniers.

Meaning comes from understanding why we can understand there is no meaning.

Way too many smart people with big reputations are wrong about everything that matters. Something’s gonna happen that gives them an excuse not to have to admit they were in denial.

One of the most, if not the most, precious and rare things in the universe is the human brain. We have a cosmic obligation to use it and to confirm it works.

Fire to cooking to intelligence to denial to god to plotting to capital punishment to self-domestication to Apollo 11 to 7 billion too many.